Have you ever walked into a public library and been assaulted by big boobs on a huge poster? A poster advertising an event that you had planned on attending with your daughters? Did you have trouble explaining to your curious daughters why a warrior woman would be half dressed? Is it comfortable? No. Practical? No. Culturally appropriate? No. Not for Valkyries in the 13th century or middle schoolers in 2016. Did you then email the event organizers and the artist who donated the drawing to ask about the intent of the poster? And waste too much time on Microsoft Paint fashioning a tank top for the Valkyrie in question? Me too!I admit, not many people are like me. This kind of stuff is everywhere and it's not fair and most people barely bat an eye. But me? Gregorific? I bat an eye. Sometimes two. Here's a glimpse into how I spend my free time. I know what you're thinking...don't ask. It's totally worth it.

​Dear CPFA, I am curious about the Comic Fest poster. You have speakers coming for a panel talk about the history of women in comics and also about how to make comics more inclusive. Yet you have a poster displayed that makes my inner feminist rise up roaring, with sharp claws at the ready. The scantily clad woman negates the sincerity of the event's panel topics. Are we really going to talk about engaging more girls into reading comics when that poster is staring at us? I come to the public library twice a week in the summer with my two daughters, ages 10 and 12. I do not like walking them past that poster. I love comic books but I do not love the way many of them represent women. I think this poster objectifies a woman's body. She is a Viking warrior but her outfit is ridiculous. The framing is focused on her large, scantily clad breasts. I don't view it as artistic, I view it as an attempt to appeal to men or boys. I like the Viking girl in the t-shirt in the back of the poster. Why couldn't they all be in that? I've never seen an ArtsFest poster with anything offensive. Who picked this? I don't want my daughters thinking comics (or libraries) are promoting half-dressed, mythically proportioned women. Comics AND women have a lot more to offer than that. I wish the BookFest poster captured that sentiment. Sincerely, Megan Gregor

The event organizers answered my email immediately.Thanks for the feedback, Megan. This year, our last exclusively comic-centered year, we are talking gender and diversity in the medium. We appreciate and respect your reaction regarding the main Valkyrie. This is exactly the kind of question we look to debate at our second panel on BookFest Saturday @2pm.Hope we'll see you there so you can add your opinion to the conversation.I did not answer that I would attend if they put a tank top on "my" Valkyrie.Sexism is nothing new in comics. I get that. It’s been a male dominated niche since the start. But the point of the comic fest was to try to change that. To open up a dialogue about the history of women in comics, and how to make the medium more inclusive. How to get more diverse artists and readers, to include more of everyone. Yet, the event poster. It was donated by a male local artist. I asked the artist why the one woman was so amply proportioned and so scantily clothed. He replied, “It looks good.”Oh-kay. I am not exactly unbiased. The artist already knew my thoughts on this poster. I asked, “Looks good in what way?” Then I had to add, “Let me guess: in a sexual way.”Why does a warrior have to have sex appeal? Because of the male eye, a continuation of comics treating women as something to be leered at instead of being taken seriously.In Norse mythology, a valkyrie (from Old Norsevalkyrja "chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie)That’s pretty cool- a serious job for an empowered woman. So why the overtly sexual costume? This was a really great chance to depict women as both strong, mythic, and powerful. Maybe next year.

Tank Top It,~gregorific

My comment to the comic fest page: Love the green t-shirt. Also love the feisty birds and the cloud coloring. I have to ask, why the boobage? Rather impractical for a fight.After more thought, I added: Why not cover up those beautiful breasts so I can actually believe she is going to fight? This poster really catches the eye in a lot of good ways. But every time we go into the library my young daughters see it and I wonder what message it is sending them. To me, it feels sexually objectifying. Like, fine be a warrior, but dress sexy while you're at it. This is meant to attract interest in the BookFest/ComicFest. It detracted mine.

I know you're dying to see the original poster. Here it is. What do YOU think?

Wow. Just...wow.
I enjoyed this book in a surprising way. I thought it was superbly written in a style I usually associate with literary big wigs who are typically men. It was a delight to see a woman master this form, and do it with such fresh topic matter and with lively, imperfect-but-lovable characters.
Did I cheer for the stalker to win? I was torn- especially when his crimes escalated. In the end, I actually thought he deserved better than the woman he decided to stalk. But after he had made the decision, all of his actions past that I had to condemn. It was a good exercise in testing my personal moral compass.
I loved reading about his obsession in the way it was written, as a twisted tribute to devotion and standards. He almost had me convinced.
Bravo, Caroline Kepnes. Thanks for a really unique, brilliant read.

It is just too tempting. When you go into your email account and fix your signature, you add a quote. Why not? It might brighten someone’s day. Or get them thinking…or remind them of something important. Yes, those are high reaching goals for an email signature quote. But gregorific aims high.

Certain people have signature quotes. Let’s categorize.*Educators: Librarians have inspirational quotes about reading. Elementary School Principals have Dr. Seuss quotes or quotes about the importance of teachers.Salespeople: Fruit Plus reps have quotes from happy customers. Scrapbook reps have quotes about never losing a memory. *These are broad generalizations based on people I know.*

And then there are the outliers, the rogues, the mavericks, who have quotes because they feel like it. I read a lot into quotes. I’m interested in how a quote becomes a “quote” and how different meanings can be ascribed to the same string of words. Yes, I like to analyze quotes. I pick mine carefully and read others thoughtfully.

How do other people pick? Maybe they have a favorite quote and they never change it because it perfectly encapsulates who they are in a flash phrase. Or maybe they are boxed in. Like a librarian or principal. They are landlocked in a sense. Their quotes have to be upbeat, usually educational or inspiring. They can get away with a goofy one sometimes but not all the time. The principal I know alternates between Dr. Seuss, Helen Keller, Mr. Rogers, MLK, and Einstein.

​I’m lucky. My playing field is wide open. I have no sponsorships to be loyal to. I can pick a kooky quote or a political one, feminist, obscure... It’s almost too much freedom. For a long time I wondered if it was obnoxious. Am I bragging that I read? (Well, I do.) Am I telling people what to think? (Take it or leave it.) Am I wasting their time? (Ha, gotcha.)

I have one friend who also always has a quote at the bottom of her emails. I enjoy watching for when it changes. When she switches quotes, I wonder why. It spurs me to switch my quote. And then she changes hers again. And then I think, hers is so good, I’ll find a better one for myself. And then hers would change again. And then I’d…You get the picture.So I finally called it what it is. A Quote War. She advances. I retreat, then press forward.I engage my generals (daughters) in strategic planning. We decide to exploit the political weather for an easy advance, much like Waterloo. I follow this with a shoot-and-scoot strategy that I learned from my dog--I change my quote three times in one week. Bam, bam, bam.

Then, a musical icon dies unexpectedly, so I blitzkrieg with a powerful quote from him.

But I leave my flank exposed and my friend uses a better quote from the same iconic artist.

I feign a retreat and go a day without a quote. I only hope she notices- we don’t email that much and I can only think of so many fake reasons to email her. I should mention…my friend is unaware of the battle raging between our quotes.Then, in a bold carpet bombing approach, I rapidly deploy a different quote per day, making sure to cover every domain of wisdom: religious, intellectual, zen, emo, maternal. (That’s it, right?)But I fall into a booby trap and use a grammatically incorrect quote from a popular book. To anyone who didn’t read the book, it might seem like mockery or something even worse.

While I’m bottlenecked over a replacement, my friend ambushes with a quote from that president that everyone loves. ;)Spirits are low in the gregorific foxhole. A random friend accuses me of email graffiti. Another mentions that she does not like a certain quote. Unaware, she uses a quote to explain why she doesn't like a quote. “I do not think it means what you think it means.” {Princess Bride! Humph!}

I recognize that we are at the tipping point in our Quote War. My next move could change everything. I call for reinforcements, hoping that any minute a golden hero will say something brand new and instantly quote worthy. Is it so much to ask for a life changing quote from Obama? I’ll even take a Beyonce quote if it’s epic. ​​

Day by day I wait. Will this siege never end? I can only hope my friend’s supplies are cut off…I do know her internet service can be spotty… ​

I imagine this Quote War could go on for some time. Rest assured, I will keep gregorific fans updated.

​The entire campaign leads me to wonder if I should conduct a social experiment to see who reads an email quote. How could I tell? I could insert a false quote that instigates a response. Like a made-up quote (Benjamin Franklin never said that!) or a self-quote (Where do you get off?) or a rude quote (Excuse me?) or an inflammatory anti-quote by Trump or that lady who messed around with the president. No one could resist responding to any of those.

I could send 100 emails and then see how many replies I get pertaining to the quote. Then I know that percentage of people read it. No, the margin of error is too large. I’ll need to confer with my statisticians. Stay tuned. The summer is coming. Social experiments run strong during that season in Gregorific Land.​Don't quote me on that, ~gregorific ​​

​While searching the internet for something my daughter *needs* for her book report presentation (a teeny tiny plastic elephant) I saw the ultimate tangent of a trend I never understood. A DIY mounted plastic animal heads craft. I mean…what?!? We are taking it to every level here.

​Displaying animal heads on your wall. I guess it started with zealous taxidermists and proud hunters.And then…people maybe decided to take back the head mount idea? Because recently it is everywhere. And by everywhere I mean in the aisles of Target.

Now there are crafts to make a head mount. For kids.Knit a head mount.Paper mache a head mount.Cut your toys up to make plastic head mounts. These fall under a new term I recently learned: 'horrible adorables'. Because even I can admit some are pretty darn cute even though I get a shiver up my spine when I gaze upon them.

Are they cute? Sometimes. Do they make sense? No. Do they creep me out? Always. Yes, I appreciate animals. I am not a fan of hunting. Does this trend glorify hunting? Do you like or hate the animal featured on the mount? Because it’s just a head, right? It’s dead. It’s not a still life or a sketch. It’s a representation of a beheaded animal.

Is it a show of respect? As I pick apart this trend, I realize that the issue I have is not with the heads. It is with the mounts. The plaque behind the trophy indicates victory and therefore death, killing, and purposeful waste. I think that sums up my personal opinion.

To clarify, I have some examples to illustrate what I find OKAY and NOT OKAY about this trend. Just so you know. If I visit you and you have a head mounted on the wall, I will not rip it down or slyly start a dinner table debate over such trivial decorating preferences. But here on my blog I do like to go there. ​You like unicorns (who doesn’t?) and you see a paper mache craft of a unicorn head that you put on a mount and hang on your wall. NOT OKAY. If you like unicorns why would you want to emulate a hunter who killed one? Maybe killed the last one.

{Related note: they found proof of unicorns. Told ya. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-28/newly-discovered-fossil-reveals-when-siberian-unicorns-last-roamed-the-earth}

When is it okay to display the mounted head of an animal on your wall?If a vicious animal attacks you (unprovoked) and you kill it with your bare hands in an even fight, and the carcass is not needed for science or the investigation, sure, go ahead, mount it and put it on your wall. OKAY. Man vs beast, you won. Flaunt it. I’m thinking JAWS.

Suggestion: People heads on mounts. In awful taste, right? Disturbing. Not right. Okay, I think that made my whole point.

Body intact,~gregorific​​

Discussion Questions: 1. Do you have any head mounts in your house? If so, explain.2. What do you think of this blossoming trend? Pro or Con? Support your answer with humorous life experiences.3. How far could this trend go? ​

***sung to the tune of Oops...I Did It Again by Britney Spears***-Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah--Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah-I won Wattpad a-gain!And I got more Wattpad following friends!Oh baby,It might seem like a crush.But it doesn't mean I'm not serious.'Cause to lose all my senses,That is just so typically me.Oh baby, baby,Yup, I did it a-gain.Wrote more fanfic-tion. Entered Wattpad's game.Oh baby, baby!Yup, I think they did love,the story I wrote of. It's not that innocent.You see the premise is this:"Selection FanFic".Wishing the characters truly were mine,I twist and tweak the plotline.Can't you see I'm a fan in so many ways.But to win Wattpad's Big Change contest-That just fills me with giddy zest!Oh baby, oh--

Check it out. I wish I could make a video to accompany this Britney spin-off fanDiction (Did I just coin that word?) But alas, my singing voice is as challenged as my tech savvy. You'll have to make do with reading my story. If you want to make me croon, vote for Eadlyn Selects in the larger, year-long contest called The Wattys. #winning, ~gregorific

Who likes the show iZombie? Me.
Who entered a fanfiction contest on Wattpad? Me.
Who was one of the winners of the contest? Me.

That’s right! I spent a whole morning writing a pseudo episode of iZombie for this contest. I love that show. It doesn’t have much of a fan base on Wattpad but I couldn’t resist the chance to take the reigns of their story and steer it where I wanted it to go. I paired up platonic best buds and co-workers Ravi and Liv. I bet in three more seasons the actual show will put them together. But for now, he’s her quirky boss and only confidante about her zombie woes. She’s a type-A zombie, something I lurve to watch play out. The brains she eats from the morgue give her psychic clues as to how the victim died, along with a dose of their personality.
​
I didn’t know I liked zombies until I read Enclave by Ann Aguirre. I did know I liked romantic procedural dramas. Moonlighting, anyone? Silk Stockings? (I won't tell.) Scarecrow and Mrs. King?

Bones? Castle? And now iZombie. I imagine there were a couple other good ones thrown in there in the past three decades, too. If you have any recommendations, please put them in the comments. I am extremely persuadable. ​

I’m the type who goes all in. If I like a show-then I am a devoted fan. I find an author I like-I read every book. Loyal/obsessed, tomato/to-mah-toe.

So you can predict what happened when I 'discovered' Wattpad. (Don't tell me how long you've known about it.) I got hooked pretty quickly.

Wattpad is a free site for people to read and write and share. I love that site. Even though some of the stories were written on phones and have mad typos and serious POV issues, I still find things in them that I love. I try to read the ones that have more than a million reads, like a vetting system. It has not led me astray. Each thing I've spent time reading has had something amazing about it. They all have a lot of heart. It’s cool because people can comment as they read each chapter. Many authors are writing as they post, and they admit to tweaking the stories as they consider the comments. Very interesting form of revision and feedback.

I just read a 300,000 word book on there and I loved it. It was excellent. It was written by a fourteen year old. It got 17.4 million reads. Not joking. Seeing all the hope and talent on there is so inspiring. Literally. It inspired me to write a bit more fanfiction. And they let you design your own cover...don't ask how long this took me :)

My fanfiction story is continuing The Selection Series' latest book The Heir. Obviously, all rights belong to Keira Cass, so what better place than Wattpad to play out my version of an ending? I was bummed when The Heir ended on a cliffhanger, especially because I was expecting it to be a standalone story. I took it as a writing exercise and hashed out an end that I would like. I'm posting it bit by bit on wattpad.

This week I reached my goal of 1000 readers! They have a demographics map of who is reading your work and I love seeing that I have readers in India, Australia, Ireland…so cool. ​Click below to share my obsession...

It was a bold challenge issued right here on this very gregorific blog. And it happened. Boldly.The deer lurked, leapt, and finally found their revenge.​How they knew when and where to hit...one will never know. Perhaps their intelligence is underrated. Perhaps they called in a cross species consult for this level of project.

All I know is this: I woke up last week and let my dog out. A bright color on the lawn caught my eye. I focused my vision and barely recognized the view before me. I bit my lip to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. I wasn’t dreaming. And now I had a sore lip.

​Our pumpkins. A month and a half out from Halloween, they were still gracing our front stoop. Okay, *gracing* is a wee bit too nostalgic. The pumpkins were sitting neglected on our front stoop. That’s reality.

But no longer. The deer had struck. Our pumpkins were slaughtered. But the assault was not random. They left my daughters' pumpkins alone. As if to say: No harm, no foul. They targeted Mr. Gregorific’s pumpkin and my own, chomping and tearing and desecrating the defenseless vegetables.

To understand that the deer had found the ideal target you must know the history of Mr. Gregorific’s pumpkin preferences. That sounds just about as weird as it is. He goes with us to the patch and we pick ours off the vine. But he can’t find his pumpkin in the field on a vine. No. He wants a short, fat, odd-colored pumpkin, usually found in the bottom of a bin at Walmart or sitting next to a dumpster behind a store amongst the cast-offs.

In 2013, he found a short, yellowish, bumpy one. It looked like a giant plantar wart that had sprouted hundreds of baby plantar warts. In 2014, he managed to find a deformed green one with some kind of growth on its top, like a tumor. He doesn’t decorate his, just sets it there and lets it speak for itself. Maybe a social commentary, maybe an act of kindness, maybe a nonsensical display of eccentricity. We don’t know. We don’t ask.

This year he found a green short one but it was the absolute perfect shape. If Cinderella was going to the ball, this one would be transformed into the coach. No doubt. It was the first year people commented positively on his pumpkin.

Some people have stated that it was this appetizing lure that drew the deer to within four feet of our front door. I mean, that is close. And then…​

Carnage. The deer enjoyed an all night buffet serving pumpkin, pumpkin, and pumpkin.See how they tore into it? My pumpkin, less beloved but mine all the same, was strewn about, tossed around, devoured, demolished. This was their version of a horse head in my bed.

I wanted to put my two detectives on this case. After a quick Google, I found out we were not the only ones who had taken a hit like this. I wanted to believe that maybe a bear, a raccoon, any animal without a personal vendetta against me, had done this.

But I have one last ace up my sleeve. It’s a real sucker punch. I’m sure the deer have already discovered it without even going online. Those pumpkins? They were rotten.

​It’s December, you fools! Look at the black mold inside. Check out my one daughter’s pumpkin, the one not chosen for brunch. She liked how it was getting scarier and scarier as each day passed. Well, jokes on you deer, your next calling card is going to be none too pleasant.

My daughter might just be the future Alex Trebeck. She’s super into quizzes. She started doing quizzes in magazines like National Geographic Kids to find out what kind of animal she would be. Her results are confidential to protect her privacy, but I’ll divulge to you (and only you, gregorific fans) that I’m a bear. I think Grizzly. I wish Spirit.

​

​Then my girl branched out and took some (parent approved) online quizzes. The National Geographic website has a bevy of awesome quizzes. She was so jazzed to take them all, and maybe even more jazzed to be the quiz administrator for the rest of the family. I learned a lot about myself.I’m a flute. I’m a mud monster. I’m half in Gryffindor, half in Ravenclaw. I’m The Hulk.

Then, she started making up her own quizzes. Her quizzes offer both insight into her mind but also into how she views the test taker. I’ll leave that tangent for her to blog about.

It’s an interesting phase. I enjoy the chance to reflect. But, when it’s 9:30 pm and she’s asking me if I’d rather be in the woods with a friend during a thunder storm or in a cabin alone during a thunder storm, I have to accuse her of stalling. Come the next morning, I am all about explaining why I’d chose the cabin. Over a cup of hot coffee (Ovaltine for her), I’m ready to chat.

My reasons for picking the cabin:a. I’m all good alone.b. I’d worry about a friend.c. I think there’s less chance of lightning strike, hypothermia, and exposure inside.​Caveat: I’m essentially saving said hypothetical friend by answering this way. You’re welcome.

As usual, my daughter does not say if there is a right answer to the question. Just nods thoughtfully and asks me another. Or ties her shoes and goes off to school. I’m thinking she’s going to be a psychiatrist or a criminal mastermind or a creator of algorithms for dating sites. Maybe a politician whisperer. Or she’ll write the next Myers-Briggs test and people will spend decades self-analyzing themselves with random letters. Or else they’ll re take the test over and over to ‘be who they want’ and beat the system. Which just wedges you further into the ENTJ pigeonhole. What, you didn’t do that?

For a while her favorite ice breaker was the classic question: flight or invisibility? I think that one reveals if you are good or evil.

Tonight she asked me: If you could be a 911 worker, which would you be?a. Policeb. Firewomanc. MedicalI picked a.

Another: Would you rather break this 2 liter bottle of soda over your friend’s head or drink it all in twenty seconds? That one was edgy, huh.

She has inspired me to create my own quiz. It’s a parenting quiz. You find out what kind of parent you are. It’ll be a smash hit because we all have a weak spot right where our parenting confidence is located. Like when someone squints at you funny when you buy your kid a candy bar in the grocery store line. It hits that spot and you just know they are judging you.

So here is my quiz. I’m still fine tuning the algorithm that analyzes the answers but I almost have it perfect. Take it if you dare…

1. Your kid notices orange flecks on your sheets and asks what it is…do you: a. Admit you were eating Doritos straight from the bag while reading a romance last night? b. Make up a story about fire ant poop? c. Complain about husband’s spectrally challenged dandruff? d. Sit on the flecks and pick that moment to tell your kid about the birds and the bees- thereby erasing all curiosity about anything else for a good six to seven months.

2. Your kid asks if you’ve ever been arrested: a. You joke, "Only for indecent awesomeness." b. You launch into an explanation of how the legal system is inherently flawed. c. You make up a crazy story to prove how much you’ve changed and reformed. d. You pull up your mug shots as visual aids.

3. Feeding baby in park. Spoon drops onto the sidewalk. a. Look around. No one saw. Pick it up and continue. b. Lick it "clean" and continue. c. Stop feeding baby and let the wails draw every eye for a quarter mile. d. Scoop food out with your finger and feed that way, never mind the bites.

4. Car music: a. Your station? b. Classical even though you hate it? c. Wheels on the bus baby CD? d. NPR even though you hate it? e. Silence so you can hear yourself think for one #$% minute of the day.

5. Learning to ride a bike. Your kid is about to crash. You: a. Scream. b. Pull out phone and call the hospital which is on speed dial. c. Run at breakneck speed so at least you will have tried. d. Close eyes.

6. Daughter wants Uggs: a. Tell her to get a job. b. Show her the documentary to save money. c. Show her the documentary to educate her. d. Buy the boots, they’re warm. e. Say no, they’re too ugly. "Buy better taste in boots."

​Rigsby and I made an agreement. If I can catch him, I get to bathe him and give him a haircut. Fair enough.

​If you recall, I am trying to save sixty dollars here. Chasing a dog seems worth it. I do that for free all the time. If it’s too cold to take him on a walk, I chase him until one of us tires out. Before agreeing to this haircut deal with him, I should have remembered that it is always me who tires out first. Always.​Once he is caught and bathed, I need a break. By the time I’m back his hair is dry, but I am able to offer more patience and less profanity to the endeavor.

I don’t get the buzzers out. The noise makes him cower and fight and makes me feel like a huge bully. Those attempts have usually ended with me abandoning the idea, and then both of us are upset and irritated for hours. And not one hair shorter.

I prepare all of the necessary supplies tweaked for his personal preferences. I line treats up on the counter within easy human reach but out of his sight. Once he sees them-boom-he obsesses. Then the whining starts. Jumping. Panic sets in. He must have the treats. It becomes the most important thing in the world. Hard to divert that kind of intensity for a haircut.

I find and set out the right comb. (We have five wrong combs.) And the professional scissors that cut easily and don’t tug with each snip. (We have three wrong scissors. Pet stores—I am your friend.)

Experience dictates the location of this haircut. I lock us in the bathroom. This will best contain the tornado of hair that happens even when I try to be careful. I try to place it in a bag or even flush it, but no matter what it always ends up blanketing the floor and me. Being in a small room also better prevents escape, and the inevitable tag game we play when he is anxious about something—see above: dog chase.

​I usually do this in painting clothes because what I wear becomes permanently fur lined. Even laundering does not remove all the clingy black hairs that burrow and weave into the fabric like termites.

I have two secret weapons: treats and time. The treats today are primo -- lunch meat. Time is on my side -- two hours until I need to walk over and get the kids.

I open the window for air, do some practice air snip snips, and then I get down to business. FYI: Don’t try this at home.

Rigs is extremely patient and cooperative at the start, for a whole four minutes. Then he looks around. He knows the drill. He gets treats. So I break a small piece of ham off and keep pruning his face hair (mustache/eyebrows/chops.) This is where I found two full ticks this week, which prompted the haircut.

In ten seconds, he is ready for another treat. My hands are both busy with the snipping. I use one hand to comb through his curls, and the other to snip what hairs extend over my knuckles. This way I am sure to get a uniform length and it’s impossible to accidentally snip his skin. FYI: If you pull the hair up and then snip with no protective barrier, you can really do some harm. Ask YouTube.

So the treat. Anywhere I put it that I can reach, so can he. I already have to corner him between the toilet and the cabinet to get his more guarded areas. I need to be able to pop that treat into his mouth and then quickly trim the momentarily exposed areas. Whoa, whoa, I mean his armpits and neck, people. ​Then I remember the difference in our IQs. And I put the ham on my head. Discreetly. Like I’m scratching my scalp. ​

​Rigsby is perplexed. He can smell it. But where is it? He checks the tub, propping his paws on the edge. I trim his tummy. He checks my knee pit. I trim behind his ears. He checks the crack of the door. I trim under his collar.

I give him the ham. Then I hide the next treat in a washcloth. He rummages. While he is busy, I trim his booty.

It’s been two hours. Believe it. My hand starts cramping. I finish his front half, excluding the feet which I save for last.

He lies down. I start the feet. He does not like the feet. I trim in between the pads of his paws and between his toenails, and up his little shank legs that seem part rabbit, part frog. He is very unhappy now. I have two feet to go and he is sitting on them. I know he is doing it on purpose.

Through the open window I hear the school bell. EEKS! I have to go get the kids. I’m in my holey, paint splattered jogging pants--covered in a second skin of dog hair. It’s a horrific sight. Once I hear that bell, I have three minutes to walk over.

​Dog not done. Bathroom floor looks like a shag rug. I look like the shag rug’s twin.

​I change clothes, feeling incredibly twitchy and itchy and sneezy. I shut the bathroom door on the mess. There is no way I can leave him in there. He’d freak. He’d never enter again.

​Plus, he is a very busy and important dog. I let him loose and he gets right to work. His normal job is racing to every window and barking at each school bus from every angle. Someone has to do it. Every day. Frantically.

For today’s work, he’s sporting a new uniform. With his back feet not trimmed and the rest of his body all sleek and short, he looks like he’s wearing dog bell bottoms.​When I return with the kids, the only thing they find funnier than how I look is how he looks.

​I lure him into the bathroom again and finish his feet. He is not happy. He tries to nose the scissors out of the way at every snip. Finally, I call the haircut over and he begs to go outside. It’s been hours, I can’t make him wait. But I know what he’ll do.

​He rolls, shakes, shimmies, and wiggles in the wettest muck pile he can find.

Meanwhile, I begin clean-up. ​I vacuum and then run a wet cloth over the tiles, toilet, and baseboards. I vacuum his path from the bathroom to the door to the windows. I take off my dog hair covered clothes and sequester them in the washing machine for an isolated cycle. I take a long, hot shower.

​When I get out, I see he has done that adorable dog shake move and gotten hair all over the place again. I will be vacuuming one more time.

Four hours have passed. I “saved” sixty whole dollars. Petco, I take back all the things I said. Rigsby will be back for his next grooming.

I am a huge fan of this author. I discovered her while ordering books by Joelle Charbonneau. (The Testing, Independent Study, Graduation) Amazon recommended the Aguirre’s Razorland series to me.

I went with the recommendation because Amazon is one of my best friends in that way. It knows me so well! Almost like it made an algorithm just for me, based on its analysis all of my purchases and browsing history. Amazon, you shouldn’t have. I mean it, you really shouldn’t have. But since you did—might as well go with it. {Do you ever think Amazon knows you better than anyone? No? Me neither.}

After Enclave, I read the rest of the trilogy: Horde and Outpost. I LOVED THEM. Ann Aguirre taught me that it’s not that I don’t like reading about zombies, it’s that I don’t like reading poorly written things about zombies. Because her books are just awesome. They are delicate and fierce in perfect proportion.

After that fabulous trilogy, I looked for more of her books and found her to be a fine example of a multi-genre author. I think you would call her Perdition trilogy a space opera, but I’m not sure. I loved that series and it led me to this new book at my library The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things. Sorry about the long intro here, but I am always curious how people find good books and authors. I’m indulging in a bit of retrospect transparency.

This book has all the things I love about her characters and plotlines. It is both tender and steely. The main female character is strong, has a past, and grittily makes her own path. The male interest is not perfect. I love that. He makes mistakes and does not solve her problems, yet he is endearing and brave in his flaws. You see why she would love him, and he her, specifically. Ann Aguirre does not shy away from awful topics, heartbreak, or violence. I like that. In this book, Sage, the female lead, struggles to move past her abusive childhood and her resulting talent for being terrible.

A cute part of this story is that Sage tries to be a good person by leaving kind Post-It notes on people’s lockers. She notices someone having a bad day and then writes them a personal Post-It cheer up message. It’s a nice tangible way for her to keep putting one foot in front of the other on the path to happiness. Spreading joy brings joy, and she demonstrates this effectively to the students in a way that does not come off as annoying or Pollyanna-ish. The students react believably.

In Queen of Bright and Shiny Things, Ann Aguirre reminds us that it is not easy to be nice, sometimes it’s easier to be mean. For me as an adult reader, she drove this point home a bit too much. We get it; Sage is conflicted. She has a bad side and has to tamp it down to keep up her new “well” image. At the same time, Sage feels deeply unworthy of her second chance and keeps thinking she will ruin it. Sure, I get it, but let’s not have quite so much internal thought about it. I *loved* when the mean side, Shadow Sage, came out. I thought the depiction of how quickly she could slip and be evil was exciting and was rendered artfully with a few deft scenes. Sage had the power and chose not to use it- but indeed, it was a heady power for both the reader and Sage to flirt with.

Another thing I would tweak is a plot point in which Sage knows something extremely convenient and blackmail worthy about the antagonist who is bullying her friends and her. I do believe that such coincidences happen, but I needed it to be a bit more realistic that she would have this info before I bought into it. Why would Sage of all people stumble on this juicy piece of info about her enemy when no one else had for years?

What would have made it work for me was if she had a talent for sneaking/snooping or if she was trying to find something out about him. The author didn't lead up to it either. Boom- almost halfway through the book- Sage suddenly remembers that she knows a secret that could destroy him. Only just then does she think of it. Another way it could have been more realistic is showing how she discovered this info. Since she rode her bike everywhere and never drove, it could have been something only visible from a bike path, and no one bikes in the winter—except Sage did. That would have solved that whole gap for me in a couple of sentences. Personal note to Ann- I’m here for you- I’ll be a beta alpha omega reader for you any time.

I also liked how: sex didn’t solve anything, musical talent didn’t get immediately discovered/famous, and unrequited crushes stayed unrequited in some cases. The subplots could have developed more and even branched off into sequels. Who knows, maybe that’s the plan. I hope so!

Another strength of this work was that Sage’s body description was not harped on, a trap many books fall into. Yet Sage’s minor insecurities (big butt) were the exact things the bullies teased her about, ringing true for the reader. It also filled in the blanks about her appearance that weren’t important except as details. Takeaway thought: She was as pretty as she felt inside.

I will continue to read this author with enthusiasm. I am very impressed by her versatility of topic, genre, and plot.

Of all her books, Enclave is still my favorite. I am excited that there are many books of hers yet to read. There is nothing better than knowing there is a great stack of books waiting for you- especially over the holidays.